#and hell if you want your Victor and Alice to react to any of mine

[thevalicemultiverse]

LB!Alice, looking at VITD setting: It can't get weirder than this.

*Camera slowly pans to BABS setting with ominous music (courtesy of an Amorphous Flute Player)*

Londerland Bloodlines Alice: Oh God, what's wrong with that one?

Valicer In The Dark Smiler: Well, for starters, apparently both the sun and the moon are evil and trying to melt people's brains or turn them into cultists! Or both!

LB Alice: ...I'm never complaining about the bizarre parts of my own world ever again.

[gaysparklepires]

23. The Truth

I had a sense that I’d been asleep for a very long time—my body was stiff, like I hadn’t moved once through all that time, either. My mind was dazed and slow; strange, colorful dreams—dreams and nightmares—swirled dizzily around the inside of my head. They were so vivid. The horrible and the heavenly, all mixed together into a bizarre jumble. There was a sharp impatience and fear, both part of that frustrating dream where your feet can’t move fast enough. …And there were plenty of monsters, red-eyed fiends that were all the more ghastly for their genteel civility. The dream was still strong—I could even remember the names. But the strongest, clearest part of the dream was not the horror. It was the heartbreak.

The heartbreak of love lost, the heartbreak of leaving a new love, the heartbreak of old love found for only the briefest of moments. They all pulsed and burned in chaotic flashes. A part of me insisted it was all real while another part of me pushed it aside as nothing but fantastic imaginations. I struggled with it as my mind became more alert, focusing on reality. I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, but I was sure school or work or even sweet Jacob waited for me. I inhaled deeply, preparing for another day.

Something cold touched my forehead with the softest pressure.

I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut. I was still dreaming, it seemed, and it felt abnormally real. I was so close to waking though. Any second now, and it would be gone.

But I realized that it felt too real, too real to be good for me. The stone arms I imagined wrapped around me were far too substantial. If I let this go any further, I’d be sorry for it later. With a frustrated sigh, I wrenched back my eyelids to dispel the illusion.

“Oh!” I gasped, and threw my fists over my eyes.

Well, clearly, I’d gone too far; it must have been a mistake to let my imagination get so out of hand. I should have gone straight to a doctor when I first started experiencing my hallucinations. I had ignored it—believed I could handle it on my own—and now my mind had snapped.

This was a major failure on my part. Had all those months of working past—well, trying to work past—this accomplished nothing? Maybe this was normal, a lapse in my rehabilitation.

I opened my eyes again—and Edward was still there, his beautiful face just inches away from mine.

“Did I frighten you?” His low voice was anxious.

I had to hand it to myself; whatever this was—delusion, vivid dream—it was very good. The face, the voice, the scent, everything was spot on. This handsome figment of my imagination watched my changing expressions with alarm. His irises were pitch-black, with bruise-like shadows under them. This surprised me; I would have thought I would have kept my hallucinatory Edward better fed.

I blinked twice, desperately trying to remember the last thing that I was sure was real. Alice was part of my dream and I wondered if she had really come back at all, or if that was just the preamble. I thought she’d returned the day I nearly downed….

“Oh, crap,” I croaked. My throat was thick with sleeping.

“What’s wrong, Beau?”

I frowned at him unhappily. His face was even more anxious than before.

“I’m dead, right?” I moaned. “I did drown. Crap, crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie.”

Edward frowned, too. “You��re not dead.”

“Then why am I not waking up?” I challenged, raising my eyebrows.

“You are awake, Beau.”

I shook my head. “Sure, sure. That’s what you want me to think. And then all this will be worse when I do wake up. If I wake up, which I won’t, because I’m dead. This is awful. Poor Charlie, and Mom… Oh god, and poor Jake…”  I trailed off in horror at what I had done.

“I can see where you might confuse me with a nightmare.” His short-lived smile was a grin. “But I can’t imagine what you would have done to wind up in hell. Did you commit many murders while I was away?”

I rolled my eyes. “None that I can recall, but who the hell knows anymore.”

He sighed.

My head was getting clearer. My eyes flickered away from his face for one second, to the dark, open window, and then back to him. I started to remember details… the reality was sinking in. I felt my stomach knot, and I felt a faint blush warm the skin over my cheekbones as I slowly realized that Edward was actually here with me, and not some dream or phantom hallucination.

“Did all of that really happen, then?” It was almost impossible to reassign my dream as reality. I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept.

“That depends.” Edward’s smile was still hard. “If you’re referring to us nearly being massacared in Italy, then, yes.”

“Oh god,” I exhaled. “I really went to Italy. I’ve never been farther east than Albuquerque.”

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should go back to sleep. You’re not coherent.”

“Oh, don’t talk down to me,” I glared. “I’m not tired anymore.” It was all becoming clear now. The reality had settled in and it was time to deal with it. “What time is it? How long have I been sleeping?”

“It’s just after one in the morning. So, about fourteen hours.”

I stretched as he spoke. I was so stiff.

“Charlie?” I asked.

Edward frowned. “Sleeping. You should probably know that I’m breaking the rules right now. Well, not technically, since he said I was never to walk through his door again, and I came in the window… But, still, the intent was clear.”

“Charlie banned you from the house?” I asked, feeling both incredulous and slightly amused.

His eyes were sad. “Did you expect anything else?”

On the one hand, I felt slightly sorry for Edward but I couldn’t fault Charlie for reacting in that way. He had every right to, really. I’m sure my disappearing didn’t help the situation at all. I briefly wondered if gently reminding Charlie that was over the legal age of adulthood would help my case any but I highly doubted it.

“What’s the story?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I tell Charlie? What’s my excuse for disappearing for… how long was I gone, anyway?” I tried to count the hours in my head.

“Just three days.”

“Oh, just three days.” I huffed.

His eyes tightened, but he smiled more naturally this time. “Actually, I was hoping you might have a good explanation. I’ve got nothing.”

I groaned. “Fabulous.”

“Well, maybe Alice will come up with something,” he offered, trying to comfort me.

And I was comforted, slightly. Alice would be able to think of something clever enough to possibly dissuade Charlie’s anger. I stared at Edward, thinking deeply. His face was so close it was glowing in the dim light from the numbers on my alarm clock. It was time to have that conversation I had been putting off. There was no avoiding it now.

“So,” I began, picking the least important—though still vitally interesting—question to start with. I didn’t think I could dive into this headfirst. “What have you been doing, up until three days ago?”

His face turned wary in an instant. “Nothing terribly exciting.”

“Of course not,” I mumbled.

“Why are you making that face?”

“Well…” I pursed my lips, considering my wording. “It’s been a long three days, and I’m not really in the mood for you to sidestep my questions.” I narrowed my eyes. “Because I do have a lot.”

He sighed. “I was… hunting.”

“Is that the best you can do?” I criticized. “That’s not much better.”

He hesitated, and then spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “I wasn’t hunting for food… I was actually trying my hand at… tracking. I’m not very good at it.”

“What were you tracking?” I asked, intrigued.

“Nothing of consequence.” His words didn’t match his expression; he looked upset, uncomfortable.

“Sidestepping again.”

He hesitated; his face, shining with an odd green cast from the light of the clock, was torn.

“I—“ He took a deep breath. “I owe you an apology. No, of course I owe you that much, much more than that. But you have to know”—the words began to flow so fast, the way I remembered he spoke sometimes when he was agitated, that I really had to concentrate to catch them all—“that I had no idea. I didn’t realize the mess I was leaving behind. I thought it was safe for you here. So safe. I had no idea that Victor”—his lips curled back when he said the name—“would come back. I’ll admit, when I saw him that one time, I was paying more attention to James’s thoughts. But I just didn’t see that Victor had this kind of response in him. That he even had such a tie to James. I think I realize why no—Victor was so sure of James, the thought of James’s failure never occurred to Victor. It was that overconfidence that clouded his feelings about him—that kept me from seeing the depth of them, the bond there.

“Not that there’s any excuse for what I left you to face. When I heard what you told Alice—what she saw herself—when I realized you had to put your life in the hands of werewolves, immature, volatile, the worst thing out there besides Victor himself”—he shuddered and the gush of words halted for a short second. “Please know that I had no idea of any of this. I feel sick, sick to my core, even now, when I can see and feel you safe in my arms. I am the most miserable excuse for—“

“Stop,” I interrupted him. He stared at me with agonized eyes, and I tried to find the right words—the words that would free him from this imagined obligation. It was going to be more difficult than I thought it would be, I didn’t know where to begin. But I had to try.

I’d really been hoping to build the conversation up to this point, not dive headfirst into the heavy stuff.

I took a deep breath, and worked on keeping my tone even and my face smooth.

“Edward,” I said but my voice already wavered with all the emotions ready to break free. “First of all, before I get to my main point, I want to make it clear that the werewolves have kept me safe. I don’t want you lumping them in with Victor. They are strong and brave and they’ve lost everything just to keep everyone safe.” I couldn’t read his expression; his eyes were still pained but there was a touch of shocked incredulous in his face.

I continued, “And listen, this has to stop now. You can’t think about things that way. You can’t let this… this guilt… rule your life. You can’t take responsibility for things that happen to me here. This is my life. So, if I get struck by lightning or a tree falls on me or I crash my truck into an embankment, you have to realize that it’s not your job to take the blame. You can’t go running off to Italy because you feel bad that you didn’t save me. Even if I had jumped off that cliff to die—which I would never do—you have to understand it’s not your fault. I know it’s your… your nature to shoulder the blame for everything, but you really can’t let that make you go to such ridiculous extremes! It’s very selfish and irresponsible—think of Esme and Carlisle and—“

I was getting too worked up. I stopped to take a deep breath, hoping to calm myself. I had to set him free. I had to make sure this never happened again.

“Beauregard Michael Swan,” he whispered, the strangest expression crossing his face. He almost looked mad. “Do you believe that I asked the Volturi to kill me because I felt guilty?”

I could feel the blank comprehension on my face. “Didn’t you?”

“Feel guilty? Intensely so. More than you can comprehend.”

“Then… what are you saying? I don’t understand.”

“Beau, I went to the Volturi because I thought you were dead,” he said, voice soft, eyes fierce. “Even if I’d had no hand in your death”— he shuddered as he whispered the last word—“ even if it wasn’t my fault, I would have gone to Italy. Obviously, I should have been more careful— I should have spoken to Alice directly, rather than accepting it secondhand from Rosalie. But, really, what was I supposed to think when the boy said Charlie was at the funeral? What are the odds?

“The odds…,” he muttered then, distracted. His voice was so low I wasn’t sure I heard it right. “The odds are always stacked against us. Mistake after mistake. I’ll never criticize Romeo again.”

“Don’t bring him into this. I still don’t understand,” I said. “That’s my whole point. So what?”

“Excuse me?”

“So what if I was dead?”

He stared at me dubiously for a long moment before answering. “Don’t you remember anything I told you before?”

“I remember everything that you told me.” Including the words that had negated all the rest.

He brushed the tip of his cool finger against my lower lip. “Beau, you seem to be under a misapprehension.” He closed his eyes, shaking his head back and forth with half a smile on his beautiful face. It wasn’t a happy smile. “I thought I’d explained it clearly before. Beau, I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”

“I am…” My head swam as I looked for the appropriate word. “Confused.” That worked. I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.

He stared deep into my eyes with his sincere, earnest gaze. “I’m a good liar, Beau, I have to be.”

I froze, my back stiffened.

He shook my shoulder, trying to loosen my rigid pose. “Let me finish! I’m a good liar, but still, for you to believe me so quickly.” He winced. “That was… excruciating.”

I waited, still frozen.

“When we were in the forest, when I was telling you goodbye—”

I didn’t allow myself to remember. I fought to keep myself in the present second only.

“You weren’t going to let go,” he whispered. “I could see that. I didn’t want to do it— it felt like it would kill me to do it— but I knew that if I couldn’t convince you that I didn’t love you anymore, it would just take you that much longer to get on with your life. I hoped that, if you thought I’d moved on, so would you.”

“A clean break,” I whispered through unmoving lips.

“Exactly. But I never imagined it would be so easy to do! I thought it would be next to impossible— that you would be so sure of the truth that I would have to lie through my teeth for hours to even plant the seed of doubt in your head. I lied, and I’m so sorry— sorry because I hurt you, sorry because it was a worthless effort. Sorry that I couldn’t protect you from what I am. I lied to save you, and it didn’t work. I’m sorry.

“But how could you believe me? After all the thousand times I’ve told you I love you, how could you let one word break your faith in me?”

I didn’t answer. I was too shocked to form a rational response.

“I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that I didn’t want you anymore. The most absurd, ridiculous concept— as if there were any way that I could exist without needing you!”

I was still frozen. His words were incomprehensible, because they were impossible for me to reconcile.

He shook my shoulder again, not hard, but enough that my teeth rattled a little.

“Beau,” he sighed. “Really, what were you thinking!”

And so I started to cry. The emotions swelled and overflowed. Every frustration, every sadness, every anger, all exploding out of me.

“I was thinking that usually when a person says those things they only say it if they mean it!” I sobbed, “I was thinking that if you really loved me you wouldn’t say any of those things in the first place!”

He looked taken aback, he ran his finger across my cheek, wiping away my tears. “Beau, how can I put this so that you’ll believe me? I’m here, and I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I was thinking of you, seeing your face in my mind, every second that I was away. When I told you that I didn’t want you, it was the very blackest kind of blasphemy.”

I shook my head while the tears continued to pour out of me.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” his whispered, his face paler than his usual pale—I could see that even in the dim light. “Why can you believe the lie, but not the truth?”

“It never made sense for you to love me,” I explained, my voice breaking twice. “A human and a vampire, I mean, come on.”

His eyes narrowed, his jaw tightened.

“I’ll prove I love you,” he promised.

He caught my face securely between his iron hands, ignoring my struggles when I tried to turn my head away.

“Please don’t,” I whispered.

He stopped, his lips just half an inch from mine.

“Why not?” He demanded, sadly.

“When you leave again, it’s just going to make things that much harder.”

He pulled back an inch, to stare at my face.

“Yesterday, when I would touch you, you were so… hesitant, so careful, and yet still the same. I need to know why. Is it because I’m too late? Because I’ve hurt you too much? Because you have moved on, as I meant for you to? That would be… quite fair. I won’t contest your decision. So don’t try to spare my feelings, please— just tell me now whether or not you can still love me, after everything I’ve done to you. Can you?” he whispered.

“Are you serious?”

“Just answer it. Please.”

I stared at him darkly for a long moment.

I considered everything that had happened, everything that I had gone through. I considered every emotion, every feeling, every choice, every decision. I considered everything that had changed, and everything that had not.

“I do… Despite everything, I do still love you.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

His mouth was on mine then, and I couldn’t fight him. Not because he was so many thousand times stronger than me, but because my will crumbled the second out lips met. The kiss was not nearly as careful as others I remembered. It was full of longing and passion that had been yearning for release.

So I kissed him back, my heart pounding erratically in my chest while my breathe caught in my throat. My hands found their way up his chest, to the back of his head, and my fingers tangled in his hair. I could feel his marble body against every line of mine. His hands memorized my face, and, in the brief seconds when his lips were free, he whispered my name.

When I was starting to get dizzy, he pulled away, only to lay his ear against my heart.

I lay there, dazed, waiting for my heartbeats to slow and quiet.

“By the way,” he said in a casual tone. “I’m not leaving you.”

I didn’t say anything, and he seemed to hear skepticism in my silence.

He lifted his face to lock my gaze in his. “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you,” he added more seriously. “I only left you in the first place because I wanted you to have a chance at a normal, happy, human life. I could see what I was doing to you—keeping you constantly on the edge of danger, taking you away from the world you belonged in, risking your life every moment I was with you. So I had to try. I had to do something, and it seemed like leaving was the only way. If I hadn’t thought you would be better off, I could have never made myself leave. I’m much too selfish. Only you could be more important than what I wanted… what I needed. What I want and need is to be with you, and I know I’ll never be strong enough to leave again. I have too many excuses to stay—thank heaven for that! It seems you can’t be safe, no matter how many miles I put between us.”

“Don’t you dare promise me anything,” I whispered. “don’t start talking like everything is fine again and you’ll never leave.”

Anger glinted metallic in his black eyes. “You think I’m lying to you now?”

“How would I know?” I shook my head, “You seemed like you meant everything you said when you left. How am I supposed to know if you’re lying or not.” He moved to speak, but I cut him off, “You could mean it… now. But what about tomorrow, when you think about all the reasons you left in the first place? Or next month, when Jasper takes a snap at me?”

He flinched.

I thought back over those last days of my life before he left me, tried to see them through the filter of what he was telling me now. Form that perspective, imagining that he’d left me while loving me, left me for me, his brooding and cold silences took on a different meaning. It didn’t excuse any of it, but added a layer to it all. “It isn’t as if you hadn’t thought the first decision through, is it?” I guessed. “You’ll end up doing what you think is right.”

“I’m not as strong as you give me credit for,” he said. “Right and wrong have ceased to mean much to me; I was coming back anyway. Before Royal told me the news, I was already past trying to live through one week at a time, or even one day. I was fighting to make it through a single hour. It was only a matter of time—and not much of it—before I showed up at your window and begged you to take me back. I’d be happy to beg now, if you’d like that.”

I grimaced. “Be serious, please.”

“Oh, I am,” he insisted, glaring now. “Will you please try to hear what I’m telling you? Will you let me attempt to explain what you mean to me?”

He waited, studying my face as he spoke to make sure I was really listening.

“Before you, Beau, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason. …And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.”

“Your eyes will adjust,” I mumbled.

“That’s just the problem—they can’t.”

I wanted to believe him. But how could I believe that these weren’t more lies? How could I be sure he wasn’t just an obnoxiously fickle vampire?

“What about your distractions?” I asked.

He laughed without a trace of humor. “Just part of the lie, love.”

“More lies.”

He sighed. “Beau, there was no distraction from the… the agony. My heart hasn’t beat in almost ninety years, but this was different. It was like my heart was gone—like I was hollow. Like I’d left everything that was inside me here with you.”

“That’s funny,” I muttered.

He arched an eyebrow. “Funny?”

“I meant, it’s funny you’d say that’s how you felt because that’s how I felt after you left. After you just disappeared without giving me a chance to really say goodbye. Just… empty.” I sighed.

He closed his eyes and laid his ear over my heart again. I let my cheek press against his hair, felt the texture of it on my skin.

“I’m so sorry, Beau.” The remorse was evident in his voice.

“Tracking wasn’t a distraction then?” I asked, curious, and also needing to distract myself. I didn’t know where this conversation was going, a small part of me was very much in danger of hoping. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself for long.

“No.” He sighed. “That was never a distraction. It was an obligation.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that, even though I never expected any danger from Victor, I wasn’t going to let him get away with… Well, like I said, I was horrible at it. I traced him as far as Texas, but then I followed a false lead down to Brazil—and really he came here.” He groaned. “I wasn’t even on the right continent! And all the while, worse than my worst fears—“

“You were hunting Victor?” My surprise came out full volume.

Charlie’s distant snores stuttered, and then picked up a regular rhythm again.

“Not well,” Edward answered, studying my outraged expression with a confused look. “But I’ll do better this time. He won’t be tainting perfectly good air by breathing in and out for much longer.”

“That is… out of the question,” I managed to control my volume this time. Insanity. Even he had Emmett or Jasper to help him. Even if he had Emmett and Jasper to help. It was bad enough to imagine Jacob standing across a small space from Victor’s vicious and feline figure. I couldn’t bear to picture Edward there, even if he was more durable than my half-human best friend?

“It’s too late for him.” Edward said suddenly.

I jumped, confused about who he was speaking about for a minute.

“For Victor?” I focused on what he was saying now.

“Indeed,” Edward continued, “I might have let the other time slide, but not now, not after—“

I interrupted him again, trying to sound calm. “Didn’t you just promise you weren’t going to leave?’ I asked, trying to come up with a way to keep him from going after Victor. “That isn’t exactly compatible when an extended tracking expedition, is it?”

He frowned. A snarl began to build low in his chest. “I will keep my promise, Beau. But Victor”—the snarl became more pronounced—“is going to die. Soon.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” I said, trying to hide my panic. “Maybe he’s not coming back. Jake’s pack is pretty tough—they probably scared Victor off. There’s really no reason to go looking for him. Besides, I’ve got bigger problems than Victor.”

Edward’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “It’s true. The werewolves are a problem.”

My stomach dropped. “The pack is not a problem.” I countered sharply, “The pack is what kept me safe when you weren’t here to protect me.”

He looked guilty and slightly hurt, but I didn’t want to baby his feelings. I continued, “My problems have nothing to do with the wolves.”

Edward looked as if he were about to say something, and then thought better of it. His teeth clicked together, and he spoke through them. “Really?” he asked. “Then what would be your greatest problem? That would make Victor’s returning for you seem like such an inconsequential matter in comparison?”

“How about the second greatest?” I hedged.

“All right,” he agreed, suspicious.

I paused. I wasn’t sure I could say the name. “There are others who are coming to look for me,” I reminded him in a subdued whisper.

He sighed, but the reaction was not as strong as I would have imagined after his response to Victor.

“The Volturi are only the second greatest?”

“You don’t seem that upset about it,” I noted.

“Well, we have plenty of time to think it through. Time means something very different to them than it does to you, or even me. They count years the way you count days. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were thirty before you crossed their minds again,” he added lightly.

“And then what happens?” I asked in horror.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he said, anxious as he watched the horror build in my face. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

“While you’re here, sure.”

He took my face between his two stone hands, holding it tightly while his midnight eyes glared into mine with the gravitational force of a black hole. “I will never leave you again.”

“But you said thirty,” I pointed out. “Are you really going to stay with me when I’m older?”

His eyes softened, while his mouth went hard. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. What choice have I? I cannot be without you, but I will not destroy your soul.”

“Wait… what?” I tried to understand his logic. I remembered his face when Aro had almost begged him to consider making me immortal. The sick look there. Was this fixation with keeping me human really about my soul, or was it because he wasn’t sure that he wanted me around that long?

“Beau?” he asked, watching my eyes.

“Okay, so let’s refocus,” I finally said, “if you really plan on staying with me then what about when I get so old that people think I’m your father? Your grandfather?” My voice was pale with revulsion—I could see Gramp’s face again in the dream mirror. Why hadn’t I really spent more time thinking about all this? I suppose I had always been aware of it; I wasn’t sure if I wanted to become a vampire, but I would keep getting older and this would be the reality of this relationship if I stayed human. Why did it surprise me so much now?

His whole was face soft now. He brushed his lips across my cheek. “That doesn’t mean anything to me,” he breathed against my skin. “You will always be the most beautiful thing in my world. Of course…” He hesitated, flinching slightly. “If you outgrew me—if you wanted something more—I would understand that, Beau. I promise I wouldn’t stand in your way if you wanted to leave me.”

His eyes were liquid onyx and utterly sincere. He spoke as if he’d put endless amounts of though into this plan of his.

“You do realize I’ll die eventually, right?” I pointed out.

He’d thought about this part, too. “I’ll follow after as soon as I can.”

“Jesus, Edward… That is seriously sick.”

“Beau, it’s the only right way left—“

“No, no.” I held up my hands, cutting him off. “We’re not going to talk about that right now. Let’s back up for a minute,” I said, “You do remember the Volturi, right? What are we going to do? If I stay human forever, they’ll kill me. Even if they don’t think of me till I’m thirty do you really think they’ll forget?”

“No,” he answered slowly, shaking his head. “They won’t forget. But…”

“But?”

He grinned while I stared at him warily.

“I have a few plans.”

“Okay, sure, and these plans,” I said, “these plans all center around me staying human?”

He shrugged. “Naturally.” His tone was brusque, his face arrogant.

What I mess I had gotten myself into. I had always been back and forth on whether or not I wanted to become a vampire, but now because of the events in Italy I didn’t know if I truly had a choice in the matter. All this was of course contingent on if I was going to really take Edward back after all this.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, I moved his arms away so that I could sit up.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, I could see that this idea hurt him, though he tried not to show it.

“No,” I told him. “But we need to go.”

He watched me suspiciously as I climbed out of the bed and fumbled around in my dark room, looking for my shoes.

“May I ask where you are going?” he asked.

“I’m going to your house,” I told him, still feeling around blindly. “I was hoping you’d be coming too.”

He got up and came to my side. “Here are your shoes. How did you plan to get there?”

“My truck?”

“That will probably wake Charlie,” he countered.

I sighed. “I know. But honestly, I’ll be grounded for the rest of my life as it is. How much more trouble can I really get in?”

“None. He’ll blame me, not you.”

“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

“Stay here,” he suggested, but his expression wasn’t hopeful.

“No dice. But if you can go ahead and make yourself at home,” I encouraged, surprised by how natural my teasing sounded, and headed for the door.

He was there before me, blocking my way.

I frowned, and turned for the window. I wondered how badly I’d hurt myself if I dangled myself out of it.

“Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“Good boy,” I smirked. “You should be there, anyway.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re extraordinarily opinionated, and I’ sure you’ll want a chance to air your views.”

“My views on which subject?” He asked through his teeth.

“This isn’t just about you anymore. You’re not the center of the universe, you know. If you’re going to bring the Volturi down on us with your plans and schemes, then your family ought to have a say.”

“A say in what?” he asked, each word distinct.

“Us. I’m putting it to a vote.”